Title:

Deep Reinforcement Learning based scheduling for

optimizing system load and response time in edge and fog
computing environments

Summary:
This paper discusses the problem of optimizing system load and response
time in edge and fog computing environments using deep reinforcement
learning-based scheduling. The authors propose a scheduling framework
that considers the task dependencies, server resource usage, and
application characteristics to minimize the objective function's value. The
proposed method uses the load balancing model to measure the resource
balancing level and the response time model to evaluate the overall
performance. The authors conduct extensive experiments on real datasets
to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Their findings show
that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods in terms of
response time, resource utilization, and task allocation. The study
concludes that deep reinforcement learning-based scheduling can
effectively optimize system load and response time in edge and fog
computing environments.

Strong side:
- The proposed method considers the dependence of tasks, application
characteristics, and server resource usage to optimize the system load and
response time effectively.
- The authors conducted extensive experiments on real datasets to
validate the effectiveness of the proposed method and compared it with
the state-of-the-art methods, showing the superiority of the proposed
method in terms of various performance metrics.
- The study's findings can be useful in addressing the challenges
associated with fog and edge computing environments, where there are
limited resources and computing power.

Weak side:
- The proposed method's complexity may lead to high computational
requirements, reducing its practicality in some real-world settings.
- The proposed method's effectiveness in different scenarios and datasets
needs to be further explored to evaluate its applicability in various fog
and edge computing settings.
- The study does not provide a detailed analysis of how the proposed
method can be integrated into existing systems or infrastructures and the
potential challenges associated with its deployment.
Alternative way:
An alternative solution could be based on the workload prediction using
machine learning algorithms. By predicting the workload, a cloud
provider can efficiently allocate resources to edge devices, reducing the
response time and improving the overall system performance.
Additionally, integrating containerization technology can enhance the
scalability, portability, and isolation of the edge devices, providing more
flexibility in deploying edge services. However, such an approach should
consider the challenges associated with resource constraints,
communication overhead, and the heterogeneity of edge devices and
applications.

Terms and Abbreviations:

AI (artificial intelligence), ALGORITHM (a set of instructions or rules to
solve a problem), BBA (balanced binary ant-colony algorithm), CPU
(central processing unit), DDPG (deep deterministic policy gradient),
DQN (deep Q-network), DRL (deep reinforcement learning), Edge/Fog
Computing, FIPA (foundation of intelligent physical agents), GA (genetic
algorithm), IoT (Internet of Things), MDP (Markov decision process),
QoS (Quality of Service), REPLAY (experience replay mechanism), RL
(Reinforcement Learning), RNN (recurrent neural network), RT
(response time), SDN (software-defined networking), SFC (service
function chain), SLA (service level agreement), UE (user equipment), and
V&V (validation and verification).